Aloha, all!
When I make birthday cards with someone special in mind (mostly family members) I try very hard to make a card that reflects an interest of theirs. Most of the time, I can find exactly what I want in my Stampin’ Up! collection, limited though it is by my tiny crafting space.
But every once in a while, I just can’t find what I want, and I allow myself to look outside the Stampin’ Up! catalog for the perfect stamp set for the occasion. Today I’m going to share two that I made this week, both for dear family members.
This card I made for my grandson’s mother, who has a kitty who’s been sick lately, and I know how much she cares for it. The kitty has medium gray fur with darker gray stripes, and I tried to work that design into coloring the kitty in the hammock. It looks better in real life than it does in a photo – happens all the time! The other special part of this design is that kitty is at the beach. Andi and her family now live near the beach on the Washington coast and she’s forever sharing pictures of the area where they live, mentioning how much she loves it. So out came my stamp set from Newton’s Nook. The papers and colors are all Stampin’ Up! There’s never any reason for me not to use these beautifully coordinating colors and papers!
The second card is for my niece, Margie. She is an adult professional, but she still loves everything unicorn. And, if you’re a Stampin’ Up! aficionado, yes there is a current unicorn in the Stampin’ Up! catalog. But that guy looks way too serious for me, and I like my unicorn birthday cards to be cute and clean. Besides that, her mother has a lot of Stampin’ Up! supplies, and I imagined that she would have bought this set as soon as the catalog came out. On the other hand, I didn’t go looking for unicorn stamps elsewhere. I figured that, by the time I got to September, I’d relent and buy the Stampin’ Up! set.
But then I saw a post about a new set from Picket Fence Studios. I went and looked at their unicorn, and I fell in love with it. The sentiment is from the same stamp set, as is the sentiment inside, “save a piece of cake for me.” So cute. But I do think that it’s the Stampin’ Up! alcohol markers, papers, ribbon, and sequins that really makes this card look as cute as I think it looks!
For the last three years, I’ve used stamps from other vendors for Margie’s birthday card, and then I’ve sent her the stamp set as a gift. So the card and stamp set will be going into the mail tomorrow!
Now back to some seasonal stamping in my 99.9% Stampin’ Up! craft room.
Happy stamping!
